"...like an old scuffer in stolen shoes"

This morning dawned crispy cold and fine, a total departure from the meteorological norms of the past few weeks.
I stayed abed until it was finally warm enough to sustain normal life, but such a fine day calls for an outing on a shiny new bike, and in the Roy Thame I had just the thing.
Furthermore my newly acquired Marresi shoes needed a tryout, so I kitted myself up, pumped up the Thame's tubulars and took myself for a lap of the ride known to Auckland's cycling community as 'the Shitponds'.

The Roy Thame is probably the twitchiest bike I have ever owned. The steep head angle and light frame combine to produce a mild shimmy if it is ridden one handed with a tight grip on the bar- loosen up and it goes away.
With 28 spoke tubulars it feels fast and buzzy, but I never got out of the small chainring, so the proof will have to wait for another day.
To my surprise, the narrow SR World Champion bars (only 38.5cm at the hoods) did not feel too bad. At the drops they measure 41cm c-c, but I didn't spend too much time there today.

The Way to Fame is on a ROY THAME Frame

From INTERNATIONAL CYCLE SPORT July 1977

Meet Roy

Rideable, but as yet unridden.
MORE PHOTOS on Flickr.

The final build is a bit different to my original plan:

Front derailler___________Suntour Superbe FD-1500
Rear derailler____________Superbe Pro RD-3100
Shiftlevers______________Suntour Superbe bandmount
Crankset________________Sugino Super Mighty 170mm, 50/42
Bottom bracket___________Sugino Super Mighty
Brakes_________________Gran Compe standard reach
Brake levers_____________Suntour Superbe CB-3200 with Olimpic hoods
Seatpost________________Suntour Superbe
Stem___________________SR Royal Extra Super Light 13.5cm
Handlebars_____________SR World Champion 41cm
Headset________________Tange Levin CD
Bar tape________________Cateye Shiny handlebar tape
Pedals_________________MKS Sylvan with Christophe aluminium toeclips

The wheels pictured are the 28h Fiamme tubulars that I built for the Broomies Wall ride. If Roy and I get along, I will build a set of Araya 20A clinchers on Superbe small flange hubs.

Washout

Friday's Breakfast Ride/Critical Mass double session was the highpoint of a weekend washed out by biblically foul weather.
Saturday dawned miserable, as forecast, so I headed for the shed to fettle the Roy Thame.

Lacking 5/32" balls for the Campagnolo Pista headset I wasted most of the morning cleaning up a Stronglight A9 before I realised that it's stack height is too high.

Mid-morning, the postie brought a pair of standard-reach Gran Compe brake calipers, which saved me from swapping my last pair of Superbe brakes off the fixed wheel Ritchey Breakaway.

The Superbe seatpost and SR Royal stem got some red paint applied to their flutes and cutaways, while the deraillers spent a morning in the tub of degreaser to soak off a the mung of three decades.

A detour to the component dating page of the Vintage Trek site suggests that my random assemblage of Superbe parts is from 1977-78, about the same vintage as the frame.

The band-mount shiftlevers are probably from the early 80s, and are not necessarily an indication of true progress unless you like complexity for its own sake.


Late Saturday afternoon I abandoned the idea of riding the Okoroire mid-Winter Fun Ride on Sunday. Torrential rain alone would not have kept me away- I rode in it last year and in 2005, but adding gale force winds to the mix seemed excessive.
Having ridden Okoroire the last six years, I guess I'll have to compensate somehow later this year.

With no ride to go to, I forged ahead with the Roy Thame on Sunday, installing a mix'n'match Sugino bottom bracket, followed up by all the other components bar the headset.
A pair of white NOS Olimpic lever hoods were wrestled onto a set of Superbe brake levers, and rummaging in a box of unsorted junk produced a brand new set of whiteCateye plastic bar tape, easily the most awful bar covering ever, but totally appropriate for a 1970s short distance TT weapon.
To maintain some colour coordination CT-B has promised a matching white Turbo saddle, and red brake cable housing is on order.

Roy Thame is here

and it's a fine thing, albeit more of a single purpose device than I had hoped.
Frame geometry is 74.5 degrees parallel, and there is only a righthand downtube shifter boss, suggesting that the frame was built exclusively for TTs, not a pastime that I have engaged in for about 15 years, nor ever shown any aptitude for.

On the positive side, it is as feathery light as you would expect of a 531SL frame, and devoid of rust and dings. Even the Campagnolo Nuovo Record Pista headset seems to be useable.

A previous owner has used a pair of clamp-on shiftlevers, and rigged up a front derailler cable guide under the BB, and being no latter day Alf Engers I will do the same.

RT v1.1

Yesterday's assertion that I have a couple of "a couple of incomplete (Suntour Superbe) groupsets" turned out to be wildly over-optimistic.






What I've got is a pile of deraillers, a pair of LD-2000 clamp-on shiftlevers, and a brakeset that is currently on another bike. Of course, I am only assuming that the RT frame takes a short reach brake...

The rear deraillers are a mix of basic Superbe RD-2100, with steel hardware; and about 1-7/8 Superbe Pro RD-3100, with aluminium pivots and pulley bolts.






There are a couple of OK looking Superbe FD-1500 hinged clamp front deraillers, and I think that a little more rummaging will eventually expose one of the weird band-mounted Superbe Pro FD-2000.


I have two pairs of brake levers, without hoods.
My one spare set of hoods is earmarked for Team McCall, so I will get a set of white Olympic hoods from ebay which will complement the black/white colour scheme.

My Superbe seatpost turns out to be Sugino Super Mighty, which is OK with me, and the Super Mighty crankarms have a decent set of factory-drillium 50/42 chainrings.


Suntour and Sugino catalog pictures from Mr Gami's catalog scans page

The Roy Thame Masterplan, V1.0

Dan Rosser, whose CBAD makes my own look benign, asked about my plans for the Roy Thame frame.
To the unafflicted this is an ill-advised and frivolous purchase, but while pondering Dan's question I realised that the RT is the ideal recipient for some early 80s Japanese kit I have been hoarding.
Early Suntour Superbe is fairly uncommon nowadays, but I have accumulated a couple of incomplete groupsets.
Sugino Mighty cranks are near enough to be good enough, and I have a hollow SR Royal Extra Super Light stem that is too cool to leave in a box.
Wheels will be Araya 20A clincher rims on small flange Suntour Superbe hubs. Back in the day we used to frown on 20As, but for this project their silver finish and low weight cancel out any concerns about durability.

A black frame with white graphics demands a white saddle, which puts me in the market for Turbo or a Rolls. To offset the monochrome paint, I will fill the flutes in the seatpost and crank spider with red paint, and use red brake cable.

Crankset_______________Sugino Mighty 170mm
Deraillers_______________Suntour Superbe
Shiftlevers______________Suntour Superbe or Simplex Retrofriction
Brakes_________________Suntour Superbe
Brake levers____________Suntour Superbe
Hubs__________________Suntour Superbe 36h
Rims__________________Araya 20A 700c clincher
Seatpost_______________Suntour Superbe
Stem__________________SR Royal Extra Super Light
Handlebars_____________SR Road Champion
Pedals_________________MKS Sylvan or Suntour Superbe Pro

Roy Thame Campionissimo

Another totally unnecessary ebay acquisition from Hilary Stone:

"Offered for sale is a beautiful 23·5in ctt c1978 Roy Thame Campionissimo frame in very good condition. Top tube length is 22·5in and rear dropout width 124mm. It is almost certainly built from Reynolds 531SL tubing. This frame has some beautiful touches - the lugs and bottom bracket cutouts are modelled on Colnago - Reg Collard who built many of the Roy Thame frames openly acknowledged the influence of Colnago on his frame building. Roy Thame was the brand name of the F W Holdsworth shop in Putney during the second half of the 1970s "

 According to Norman Kilgariff's Holdsworth website, Reg Collard, who also built CTB's splendid Holdsworth Italia, was the 'specials' builder for the Holdsworth retail stores which in 1964 became a separate entity from the manufacturing and wholesaling business.
The shop-built frames were branded Roy Thame in 1975 (after one of the owners) when Holdsworthy Ltd withdrew permission to use the Holdsworth brand.

While the lug cutouts evoke Colnago for some, the motif of three overlapping circles was used by other English builders such as W.B Hurlow and Stan Pike.